Bautista's writing is vivid and immersive, drawing readers into a richly imagined world where anything is possible. With its engaging characters and fast-paced plot, "From Fire and Shadows" is a must-read for fans of epic fantasy.

This story unfortunately wasn’t for me. I just couldn’t really ‘click’ with it. It had some interesting elements and I was drawn by them, but overall I couldn’t connect really with the writing style. Did finish it, but yeah… just wasn’t for me. Sometimes that happens unfortunately. It’s not just being critical when reading a review book, but also the feelings when experiencing a book you know? That just wasn’t what I was hoping to get out of it.

Do think this book will be perfect for other readers out there and should definitely be given a go when it looks interesting to someone.

I really enjoyed this book and I liked the two main Characters. I particularly liked Theodora. She did not have an easy life, and finding she had powers was totally unexpected. I liked Kai as well.
The writing was gripping and the plot kept me turning pages.

As a lover of fantasy, this lacked a little something for me and I didn’t feel massively engaged with it. I think the plot was hard to follow in places but the concept was very good

This book ended up not being for me. The author writes the book very well. And the characters were well thought out and the plot was throughly thought out. I would tell anyone to give this book a read through who loves fantasy.

A girl with a dangerous power. A warrior they call the shadow of death. A world divided and slowly dying. - This sounded absolutely great, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought. In the end, it just wasn't a book for me, unfortunately.

I truly enjoyed the imaginative way the characters stories were woven together. So much adventure and truly dynamic characters this book was a treat to read.

I liked this book. Though I did get confused through some of the plot devices, it was hard to follow the story at some parts. The story it ended up being was very different from the one I thought it started out as.

Good start for a series. I enjoyed the book but it seemed like there were two different books going on. Kai's and Thea's worlds were so different, it felt like different books.
But I liked the world Baptista created and I would read more.

This was an incredible book for the start of a series and a strong debut. I really enjoyed the world building and magic system. Really great characters.

The book started out interesting, shaping the story, but i quickly fell off. It just...very quickly bored me? i couldn\t focus on the characters or find it interesting.

Took a long time for me to see where this was going. Strong start and then wandered off. Enjoyed the premise a lot.

From Fire and Shadows is the tale of two protagonists, Theodora and Kai, who might be the only ones who can stop a global war from erupting. For Thea is blessed with a rare, destructive power and Kai is an assassin who might just upend the system.

The premise sounded fantastic, but this book unfortunately suffered from pacing issues. Baptista has made a fascinating world with a cool Gaelic-based magic system, but spent so long laying the foundations of her world that we never truly got to get attached to the people populating it. I never quite managed to connect to Thea and Kai, especially since within the narrative they live such separate lives that it almost feels like separate stories, and that's despite their special connection. This is only made more difficult by the fact that there are time jumps that shake you out of your rhythm.

Another factor working against the book is its writing style. At first, it comes off as very pretty and atmospheric, but as time goes on and the story drags due to the lack of action, it starts to really weigh down the pacing.

Nevertheless, I think that the end of the story left the characters at an interesting point, and I'd be curious to see how the story progresses from here on out.

I enjoyed this book and the characters, but felt there were huge gaps in the timeline to allow the characters to age but which expected an acceptance that most everything else was on pause for these periods, with nothing of note happening.
For character building this could perhaps have been done as flashbacks to the past, rather than losing the urgency of the moment.

This book has a lot of potential with its wide cast of characters and expansive worldbuilding, however, the pacing is very slow with elements that aren't fully developed. The magic words, kingdom names, and even character names were largely forgettable or easy to confuse, making a difficult reading experience. It took me several weeks to finally power through and finish, instead of DNF'ing.

From Fire and Shadows has much potential. Unfortunately, the two perspectives that are supposed to drive the story lack cohesion while the story lacks world-building.

Poorly Executed
From Fire and Shadows landed on the ever-terrible DNF pile. I tried readers; I did because it had a strong opening. However, what was most distracting was the lack of world-building.

While I was reading, I had absolutely nothing to ground me to the narrative. There is no sense of the world, no sense of the magic that supposedly exists here to give me something to follow. And then, the story splits into two directions, first following Theodora and then following Kai. It felt all over the place as it tries to build up this fantastical world. However, again, the culture, the community, the magic, they lack substance; they lack a compelling narrative that would otherwise give the story a strong foundation.

From the lacking world-building, the author also employs their own language. Creating your own language is acceptable; Tolkien and many more do it. However, what is missing here is context. I was left in the dark, not knowing what the characters were saying. Honestly, as a reader, I should not have to go to the back of the book to look up a word to understand a phrase the character is saying. Context clues are everything and can be executed exceptionally well.

That was not the case here.

Poor Characterization
What was also bothersome about the story was the tone and narrative of the story. Theodora is supposed to be six, but she does not sound six. Throughout the story, there are many times where this girl sounds at least sixteen, which made connecting to her challenging. As for Kai, he was just bland, and his story felt so different from Theodora’s that it felt like there were two stories and two different worlds going.

Final Thoughts
From Fire and Shadows had potential, but it lacked strong world-building. It also lacked good characterization because these narratives almost seemed to be building two different worlds rather than one.

If I am honest, I was a little lost with the plot of this book. I think because I was reading an ebook, I couldn't easily look up the different termilogy that isn't in English. This left me lost on who or what each character was and I found it difficult to follow the plot. I did enjoy what I could follow of the storyline and I do look forward to reading the next installment

I was really interested in reading this. The story line seemed like something that I would enjoy. However, I struggled to read this book. It felt a little a bit all over the place and I found that I could not relate to the main characters, and I was not interested in how the story ended for them. I am sure there are people who would love this story, it just wasn't for me.

3 Stars!

The story itself is that Theodora has no Papeete and then it suddenly *appears* and from there something BIG happens, I mean that was so much fun reading I was like WOW and already invested!

I really enjoyed the concept of this one, however it took me quite a long time to actually get into it and it fell slightly flat for me after such a strong start!

The biggest thing that I found so off putting were the jumps in time that just left me frustrated I suppose.

Overall great concept, had a feeling more of a prequel that the first book in the series, but an okay read.

This just fell short for me, I think because I went in having certain expectations that just weren't met. There was a disconnect as well when I was reading and I didn't feel any connection to the plot or characters in meaningful ways.